Now thats the flaw in your logic, when you arb the focus is allways on taking the edge from the $ earned on arbitrage between exchanges on the same volume of BTC.

Lets assume you have (to keep it basic and minimalistic) $100 on all 3 exchanges with volume and also 10BTC on each exchange, that is 30BTC that is BTC you never intend to match at a $ rate since the only $ that matters to you is when you swop 1BTC from exchange 1 with 1BTC at exchange 2.

You never lose BTC value, you only gain $ value when done properly. Im not sure why bitscalper pays in BTC , the $ approach is much less sophisticated.

Bitcoin price is $5 and you have:Mtgox: $100 and 20BTCTradeHill: $100 and 20BTC$400 total

Bitcoin price drops to $2.5. Now you have:Mtgox: $100 and 20BTCTradeHill: $100 and 20BTC$300 total

Now thats the flaw in your logic, when you arb the focus is allways on taking the edge from the $ earned on arbitrage between exchanges on the same volume of BTC.

Lets assume you have (to keep it basic and minimalistic) $100 on all 3 exchanges with volume and also 10BTC on each exchange, that is 30BTC that is BTC you never intend to match at a $ rate since the only $ that matters to you is when you swop 1BTC from exchange 1 with 1BTC at exchange 2.

You never lose BTC value, you only gain $ value when done properly. Im not sure why bitscalper pays in BTC , the $ approach is much less sophisticated.

Bitcoin price is $5 and you have:Mtgox: $100 and 20BTCTradeHill: $100 and 20BTC$400 total

Bitcoin price drops to $2.5. Now you have:Mtgox: $100 and 20BTCTradeHill: $100 and 20BTC$300 total

Again the running BTC value doesnt matter, you cant arb if you actively match your BTC networth to the exchange rate.

The reason why the BTC used to arb shouldnt matter is simple, you have no intend to every sell it otherwise you cant arb to make $ profit.

The only running count you care about is the swop/price diff for 1BTC from one exchange to the other. If the BTC price actually matters then allways keep 1BTC at each exchange and only trade 1BTC at a time when the price different is profitable.

...In the land of the stale, the man with one share is king... >> Clipse

Again the running BTC value doesnt matter, you cant arb if you actively match your BTC networth to the exchange rate.

The only running count you care about is the swop/price diff for 1BTC from one exchange to the other. If the BTC price actually matters then allways keep 1BTC at each exchange and only trade 1BTC at a time when the price different is profitable.

It matters because you want to withdraw your earnings! You had $400 and now you have $300. You lost money.

I did arbitrage during the summer when the price dropped 90% in 3 months. Doing 10% a month in arbitrage opportunities means nothing when the BTC value keeps decreasing like that.

Again the running BTC value doesnt matter, you cant arb if you actively match your BTC networth to the exchange rate.

The only running count you care about is the swop/price diff for 1BTC from one exchange to the other. If the BTC price actually matters then allways keep 1BTC at each exchange and only trade 1BTC at a time when the price different is profitable.

It matters because you want to withdraw your earnings! You had $400 and now you have $300. You lost money.

I did arbitrage during the summer when the price dropped 90% in 3 months. Doing 10% a month in arbitrage opportunities means nothing if the BTC value keeps decreasing like that.

Ok seriously are you missing the point or just ignoring it?

Remember proper arbitrage happens in realtime and most of the within a few seconds if not less than a second. You dont buy 1BTC at exchange 1 and then wait minutes or hours so that exchange 2 price is higher and then sell at exchange 2. The arbitrage price difference must be available in realtime and executed near realtime.

The higher BTC balance you keep per exchange only means the higher the scalping value you could gain at arbitrage opportunities so if you actually intend to scalp and earn $ then also sell the BTC for $ well obviously keep the BTC per exchange low but this is a terrible way to approach scalping anyhow.

1 BTC allways equals 1BTC no matter what the markets does. You end up withdrawing the $ you scalped from the different exchange rates, you dont ever convert the BTC to $ since if you dont have BTC you cant scalp. This cant be made any clearer so if you still dont understand why BTC price doesnt matter and only the price difference between exchanges well I really dont know how to make it clearer

...In the land of the stale, the man with one share is king... >> Clipse

Remember proper arbitrage happens in realtime and most of the within a few seconds if not less than a second. You dont buy 1BTC at exchange 1 and then wait minutes or hours so that exchange 2 price is higher and then sell at exchange 2. The arbitrage price difference must be available in realtime and executed near realtime.

1 BTC allways equals 1BTC no matter what the markets does. You end up withdrawing the $ you scalped from the different exchange rates, you dont ever convert the BTC to $ since if you dont have BTC you cant scalp. This cant be made any clearer so if you still dont understand why BTC price doesnt matter and only the price difference between exchanges well I really dont know how to make it clearer

Meh... whatever. I see things differently so lets just keep our different opinions.

Remember proper arbitrage happens in realtime and most of the within a few seconds if not less than a second. You dont buy 1BTC at exchange 1 and then wait minutes or hours so that exchange 2 price is higher and then sell at exchange 2. The arbitrage price difference must be available in realtime and executed near realtime.

1 BTC allways equals 1BTC no matter what the markets does. You end up withdrawing the $ you scalped from the different exchange rates, you dont ever convert the BTC to $ since if you dont have BTC you cant scalp. This cant be made any clearer so if you still dont understand why BTC price doesnt matter and only the price difference between exchanges well I really dont know how to make it clearer

Meh... whatever. I see things differently so lets just keep our different opinions.

I noticed you see things different, there is however only one arbitrage approach where you keep the BTC balanced at all exchanges(no gains or losses in BTC) and only gain on each exchange in $ from the BTC shifting/swapping on scalping, this is called arbitrage and it has 0 risk

Oh just one final brainfart when you have 10BTC and the market price is $7 per BTC, you still only have 10BTC. You only have $70 at the time that you sell the BTC

...In the land of the stale, the man with one share is king... >> Clipse

I noticed you see things different, there is however only one arbitrage approach where you keep the BTC balanced at all exchanges(no gains or losses in BTC) and only gain on each exchange in $ from the BTC shifting/swapping on scalping, this is called arbitrage and it has 0 risk

Oh just one final brainfart when you have 10BTC and the market price is $7 per BTC, you still only have 10BTC. You only have $70 at the time that you sell the BTC

I wasn't supposed to answer but whatever...

This is how I see things: an investment has a duration and a ROI. So if I invest $1000 right now and collect $1300 in 3 months I am earning 10% a month. If I invest $1000 right now and collect $700 in 3 months I am losing 10% a month. I honestly couldn't care less about what happens during those 3 months. All I see is X money goes in and X money comes out.

I see what you are both talking about. In the above scenario if you want to cash out the entire system back to USD then yes, you have a $100 loss.

But in our case everything is in BTC so there is no problem if the value of the BTC goes down. Everyone still has their BTC and we can all cash out and get our BTC back. Yes everyone lost relative to the USD in the scenario but we do not care (well we might care when we - the customers - go to pay our bills in USD and have to convert) but that is not Bitscalper's problem. They do all accounting in BTC and move all profits from fiat back into BTC so as long as they have some sort of profit on average on each pair of trades the total BTC in the system can only go up.

nmat: also note that if you just held BTC and it went down you have now lost money. But if you put it into the sytem, make a small gain in BTC and the value goes down you have lost less money (in USD) than you would have lost if you did nothing.

Our family was terrorized by Homeland Security. Read all about it here: http://www.jmwagner.com/ and http://www.burtw.com/ Any donations to help us recover from the $300,000 in legal fees and forced donations to the Federal Asset Forfeiture slush fund are greatly appreciated!

I noticed you see things different, there is however only one arbitrage approach where you keep the BTC balanced at all exchanges(no gains or losses in BTC) and only gain on each exchange in $ from the BTC shifting/swapping on scalping, this is called arbitrage and it has 0 risk

Oh just one final brainfart when you have 10BTC and the market price is $7 per BTC, you still only have 10BTC. You only have $70 at the time that you sell the BTC

I wasn't supposed to answer but whatever...

This is how I see things: an investment has a duration and a ROI. So if I invest $1000 right now and collect $1300 in 3 months I am earning 10% a month. If I invest $1000 right now and collect $700 in 3 months I am losing 10% a month. I honestly couldn't care less about what happens during those 3 months. All I see is X money goes in and X money comes out.

See where I am getting at?

Yep I see what you mean but that approach doesnt relate to arbitrage. Arbitrage isnt a longterm investment, its short term and ideally multiple micro transactions.

What you refer to is dealing with one investment ie. buying BTC for $ and then only keeping the BTC hoping the price will rise and then sell at a high. Scalping deals with 2 different investments which entails short term which would be the $ scalping from the BTC which is a 0 risk game along with the longterm BTC investment to sell at a high. If the BTC price matters to someone making use of arbitrage between exchanges they should simply not keep huge volumes of BTC to scalp with.

I see what you are both talking about. In the above scenario if you want to cash out the entire system back to USD then yes, you have a $100 loss.

But in our case everything is in BTC so there is no problem if the value of the BTC goes down. Everyone still has their BTC and we can all cash out and get our BTC back. Yes everyone lost relative to the USD in the scenario but we do not care (well we might care when we - the customers - go to pay our bills in USD and have to convert) but that is not Bitscalper's problem. They do all accounting in BTC and move all profits from fiat back into BTC so as long as they have some sort of profit on average on each pair of trades the total BTC in the system can only go up.

nmat: also note that if you just held BTC and it went down you have now lost money. But if you put it into the sytem, make a small gain in BTC and the value goes down you have lost less money (in USD) than you would have lost if you did nothing.

Exactly what I am getting at, a big scalper with enough to cover most of the arbitrage volume would not convert his BTC at the end of the month to pay for bills. He would simply use the $ earned from swapping BTC between exchanges and withdraw that to pay the bills.

...In the land of the stale, the man with one share is king... >> Clipse

nmat: also note that if you just held BTC and it went down you have now lost money. But if you put it into the sytem, make a small gain in BTC and the value goes down you have lost less money (in USD) than you would have lost if you did nothing.

Of course. And I would have earned more by not having BTC at all.

Anyway, good luck to everyone with bitscalper. I just hope that it doesn't dry out all the arbitrage opportunities (I also want some ).

Remember proper arbitrage happens in realtime and most of the within a few seconds if not less than a second. You dont buy 1BTC at exchange 1 and then wait minutes or hours so that exchange 2 price is higher and then sell at exchange 2. The arbitrage price difference must be available in realtime and executed near realtime.

You can't transfer $ instantly between exchanges. So how can this work?

I think you just keep a buffer of $ at each exchange. If things go really well things naturally rebalance as the trades go back and forth. However if all trades are going one way you would need to move some $ around as needed.

Our family was terrorized by Homeland Security. Read all about it here: http://www.jmwagner.com/ and http://www.burtw.com/ Any donations to help us recover from the $300,000 in legal fees and forced donations to the Federal Asset Forfeiture slush fund are greatly appreciated!

Remember proper arbitrage happens in realtime and most of the within a few seconds if not less than a second. You dont buy 1BTC at exchange 1 and then wait minutes or hours so that exchange 2 price is higher and then sell at exchange 2. The arbitrage price difference must be available in realtime and executed near realtime.

You can't transfer $ instantly between exchanges. So how can this work?

Remember proper arbitrage happens in realtime and most of the within a few seconds if not less than a second. You dont buy 1BTC at exchange 1 and then wait minutes or hours so that exchange 2 price is higher and then sell at exchange 2. The arbitrage price difference must be available in realtime and executed near realtime.

You can't transfer $ instantly between exchanges. So how can this work?

You can't transfer $ instantly without BitInstant you mean?

If you plan to properly arb trade then you need to keep $ at all exchanges and slightly more than the BTC equiv so you dont have to constantly move $ around. If you are going to play it cheap then you would be stuck with constant rebalancing of $ among exchanges.

When I did arbitrage during last year price rise and crash june-august, I left just over $1000 at each exchange and ~30BTC at each exchange. This meant I usually had enough $ to scalp BTC and I didnt allways scalp the full 30BTC at a time.

...In the land of the stale, the man with one share is king... >> Clipse

Seems to be pretty popular already.The bot (if there is one) scalped ~28 BTC from monday to tuesday. The intrest was around 0,25%. So I assume that there are 11200 BTC in the system?

You can scalp 28BTC with just 1BTC btw , it can constantly scalp the same values in micro scalps if needed. I am not sure how bitscalper manages it, just making it clear that you dont need xBTC to scalp yBTC.

...In the land of the stale, the man with one share is king... >> Clipse

Remember proper arbitrage happens in realtime and most of the within a few seconds if not less than a second. You dont buy 1BTC at exchange 1 and then wait minutes or hours so that exchange 2 price is higher and then sell at exchange 2. The arbitrage price difference must be available in realtime and executed near realtime.

You can't transfer $ instantly between exchanges. So how can this work?

You can't transfer $ instantly without BitInstant you mean?

If you plan to properly arb trade then you need to keep $ at all exchanges and slightly more than the BTC equiv so you dont have to constantly move $ around. If you are going to play it cheap then you would be stuck with constant rebalancing of $ among exchanges.

When I did arbitrage during last year price rise and crash june-august, I left just over $1000 at each exchange and ~30BTC at each exchange. This meant I usually had enough $ to scalp BTC and I didnt allways scalp the full 30BTC at a time.

For now i sent another 30BTC to bitscalper, let's have another look before going in with more risk. But as you already have mentioned - does it even matter how much BTC i push into the system?

You write you did this for your own in the past. Did you send BTC or USD from one echange to another? Otherwise you will run out of coins or money. But with all the fees is there so much profit left over to make?

Remember proper arbitrage happens in realtime and most of the within a few seconds if not less than a second. You dont buy 1BTC at exchange 1 and then wait minutes or hours so that exchange 2 price is higher and then sell at exchange 2. The arbitrage price difference must be available in realtime and executed near realtime.

You can't transfer $ instantly between exchanges. So how can this work?

You can't transfer $ instantly without BitInstant you mean?

If you plan to properly arb trade then you need to keep $ at all exchanges and slightly more than the BTC equiv so you dont have to constantly move $ around. If you are going to play it cheap then you would be stuck with constant rebalancing of $ among exchanges.

When I did arbitrage during last year price rise and crash june-august, I left just over $1000 at each exchange and ~30BTC at each exchange. This meant I usually had enough $ to scalp BTC and I didnt allways scalp the full 30BTC at a time.

For now i sent another 30BTC to bitscalper, let's have another look before going in with more risk. But as you already have mentioned - does it even matter how much BTC i push into the system?

You write you did this for your own in the past. Did you send BTC or USD from one echange to another? Otherwise you will run out of coins or money. But with all the fees is there so much profit left over to make?

The way bitscalper does the BTC profit payout I think is to payout the percentage to each person based on the their share of the BTC scalping pool.

When I scalped it was all about getting $ out of the BTC trade, not sure how bitscalper managed to give profit in BTC. I guess they have a completely different way to approach scalping than what I used. You never run out of coins since you allways buy at exchange1 at lower price the same amount of BTC that you just sold at exchange2 thus the BTC float allways stays balanced and only the $ that you gained would increase(or decrease if you constantly buy at only one exchange but then you need to transfer more $ to this exchange when it runs low). Before you sell and buy the BTC scalp you would calculate the commission percentages in so that when you buy the commission would be negated.

...In the land of the stale, the man with one share is king... >> Clipse